Jan. 29, 2003

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - The fourth-winningest coach in Division I men's college basketball history and the bearer of 348 wins while coaching for 17 seasons at Maryland, Charles "Lefty" Driesell will be honored by Maryland officials and Terrapins fans on Thursday night at halftime of the Terps vs. NC State men's basketball game.

Driesell will be introduced at halftime of Thursday night's 9 p.m. basketball game pitting the two teams currently in first and second place in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Driesell, who coached the Terrapins from the 1970 through the 1986 seasons, retired last month from the coaching profession while concluding his 41-year at Georgia State. Ranked behind Dean Smith, Adolph Rupp and Bobby Knight with 786 career victories, the "Lefthander" coached at Davidson, Maryland and James Madison before ending his career in Atlanta. He led all four of his schools to the NCAA Tournament and is the only coach in history to win 100 games at four different schools.

The innovative and hard-working Driesell is widely known as the "inventor" of Midnight Madness to begin the first day of college basketball practice each season. He also was named the conference coach of the year in four different conferences, and produced 22 20-win seasons. In addition to his naming last spring to Maryland's Athletic Hall of Fame, he was a finalist last year for the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.

At Maryland, he produced a 348-159 (.686) record with eight Top 20 rankings, seven All-Americans and ten 20-win seasons while making Cole Field House one of the nation's most celebrated home courts. He guided the Terps to the NCAA Elite Eight in 1973 and 1975 and to eight NCAA Tournament appearances overall. He and the Terps missed a ninth opportunity when Driesell's fourth-ranked Terrapins fell to NC State 103-100, in overtime, in the championship game of the 1974 ACC Tournament.

Ironic that the Terrapins play host to NC State on Thursday, as it was during Driesell's era that the Terps played NC State in a series of duals between nationally-ranked teams including the game that many historians regard as the greatest ever played in ACC history - the 1974 ACC Tournament win by the Wolfpack. The win sent top-ranked NCSU on to the NCAA Tournament where NC State defeated UCLA for a national title. Maryland, though ranked fourth in the country, was forced to end its season with the loss during an era which allowed only a conference champion to advance to the NCAA Tournament. One year later, the NCAA expanded its tournament to allow at-large teams.

Among his many former Maryland players and student-athletes, Driesell has coached two Rhodes scholars, a U.S. Congressmen (Tom McMillen), a Harvard lawyer and TV announcer (Len Elmore), the president of the NBA players union (Buck Williams), NBA leaders (Dallas Mavericks GM Brad Davis and former San Antonio and Cleveland head coach John Lucas), doctors, businessmen and a college athletics directors (Georgia State A.D. Greg Manning).

Driesell, who turned 71 on Christmas Day, and his wife of 51 years (Joyce) have four grown children and eight grandchildren. His son, Chuck, played for him at Maryland and now is head coach at Marymount (Va.) College.